a leaf on the wind

"- soar." He blinked, and looked around - the bridge was suddenly empty, and very bright. Had the Reavers suddenly turned on a massive searchlight? "We should get out of here. They'll be swarming the place in a..." He turned.

He was alone. No Mal, no Zoe. Just Wash, sitting in his pilot seat. Horror began to rise in his gut; what had happened to his wife? Had they made a break for it after the Reavers turned on that spotlight? He stood slowly and took a few tentative steps forward - he wanted answers, but he also knew that there were dozens of Reavers less than a stone's throw away from where he was standing, and they needed to not be here anymore.

So where were Zoe and Mal? Why would they leave him sitting at the helm like this? Unless... something had happened to someone else. Maybe Kaylee, or Inara, or River! He rushed from the room, stumbling against the wall, and crashed straight into the dining room. "Is everyone okay?" he cried, and then froze.

The dining room was empty. And clean, which he knew it shouldn't be after that landing. Something was wrong, horribly wrong. Was he dreaming? Had he just fallen asleep in his chair, and nightmare-d up the whole awful Miranda business?

"Hello? Zoe?" he said tentatively. "Jayne? Inara?" he asked uncertainly, but Serenity's walls stayed stubbornly silent. The infirmary was empty - but neat, like Simon had just been in there cleaning up. "Simon? River?" The engine room was also empty, and still; wherever they were, Serenity wasn't moving but then, he could have guessed that on his own. "Kaylee? Mal? This isn't funny, guys."

He continued to walk through the halls, his footsteps echoing unnaturally loud, when he heard something else - a door opening. Elated, he ran toward the sound, and nearly crashed head-first into Shepherd Book. "Oh, Shepherd, thank God. I was starting to think I'd gone crazy," he said, laughing, but Shepherd didn't respond. "I mean, there was this mess with River and something about subliminal mind control and Reavers and..."

Wait a minute.

"Wash? Oh, no..." the preacher muttered, and Wash suddenly found that he couldn't breathe.

Shepherd was dead. Died on Haven, before they left for Miranda. Which either meant that all of that was a nasty dream and none of it really happened, or all of it was real and -

Zoe.

He didn't register that he was moving until he hit the floor, stunned and horrified and scared and lonely and a little heartbroken and just the tiniest bit disappointed because this was a really unfair way to die and he just wanted to touch Zoe one more time, just hear her voice, just...

"What happened? Everything was - I was fine - The Reavers, they didn't even - "

"I don't know," Shepherd said, sitting down next to him and clutching his shoulder. "I don't know, Wash."

"Zoe, she'll be - I need to - "

"You can't."

"Don't tell me I can't!" he shrieked, before he was even aware his mouth was moving. He had to see Zoe. He had to know that she survived the battle, or would survive the battle, that she would move on without him, that she would be okay and no one - not even Shepherd fucking Book - was going to sit there and tell him that he couldn't see his wife.

He didn't even get to say goodbye.

"I'm sorry, son. It just doesn't work that way," Shepherd said in a low voice. "There's lots of things I wanted to know when it happened to me, too, and I didn't get any answers either. You just have to be patient and hope for the best."

"Hope for the..." he gasped, and then let out a mirthless laugh. "I'm dead, Book. I'm not exactly a beacon of optimism here!"

"Death isn't the end," Shepherd replied evenly.

"Yeah? 'Cause from where I'm standing, it seems pretty end-ish." The initial shock was beginning to wear off, and the intense grief started to set in. He would never see Zoe again. They would never have that baby she had been talking about wanting to meet. He'd never fly Serenity again, or comfort Kaylee again, or see if Simon could fix River. He would never get to tell them all the things that he hadn't had the time or courage to say. It was over. The best five years of his life, the most amazing woman he'd ever known, the craziest and most ferociously loyal people he'd ever met, the sweetest mechanics and the most broken teenagers and the friendliest Companion - it was all over.

It was all over.

"I don't even know what happened to me," he whispered, in a low, weak voice. "I mean, one minute, I'm flying Serenity through this crazy aerial battle, and then we land without any landing gear at all, and then... Did I die in the crash?"

"I don't know, Wash," Shepherd replied softly. "I just don't know."

He closed his eyes. He could almost feel the ship's history - Kaylee and River fighting over apples, Mal and Inara talking in the cargo bay where they thought no one would notice, Simon calling Jayne a monkey, Book reading his Bible at the table and pretending not to hear the chaos around him, Zoe sitting with him on the bridge and watching the stars pass by. If he closed his eyes tight enough and pictured it hard enough, he could almost place himself back there, feel her arms around him, taste happiness on her lips.

It took him a long time to stop crying.

A/N: I am so sorry. And I also am SO HORRIBLY ORIGINAL when it comes to titles.